No Arabic abstract
We propose a method to break the chiral symmetry of light in traveling wave resonators by coupling the optical modes to a lossy channel. Through the engineered dissipation, an indirect dissipative coupling between two oppositely propagating modes can be realized. Combining with reactive coupling, it can break the chiral symmetry of the resonator, allowing light propagating only in one direction. The chiral symmetry breaking is numerically verified by the simulation of an electromagnetic field in a micro-ring cavity, with proper refractive index distributions. This work provokes us to emphasize the dissipation engineering in photonics, and the generalized idea can also be applied to other systems.
Optical cavities are a cornerstone of photonics. They are indispensable in lasers, optical filters, optical combs and clocks, in quantum physics, and have enabled the detection of gravitational waves. Cavities transmit light only at discrete resonant frequencies, which are well-separated in micro-structures. Despite attempts at the construction of `white-light cavities, the benefits accrued upon optically interacting with a cavity -- such as resonant field buildup -- have remained confined to narrow linewidths. Here, we demonstrate achromatic optical transmission through a planar Fabry-Perot micro-cavity via angularly multiplexed phase-matching that exploits a bio-inspired grating configuration. By correlating each wavelength with an appropriate angle of incidence, a continuous spectrum resonates and the micro-cavity is rendered transparent. The locus of a single-order 0.7-nm-wide resonance is de-slanted in spectral-angular space to become a 60-nm-wide achromatic resonance spanning multiple cavity free-spectral-ranges. This approach severs the link between the resonance bandwidth and the cavity-photon lifetime, thereby promising resonant enhancement of linear and nonlinear optical effects over broad bandwidths in ultrathin devices.
Aluminum nitride is an appealing nonlinear optical material for on-chip wavelength conversion. Here we report optical frequency comb generation from high quality factor aluminum nitride micro-ring resonators integrated on silicon substrates. By engineering the waveguide structure to achieve near-zero dispersion at telecommunication wavelengths and optimizing the phase matching for four-wave mixing, frequency combs are generated with a single wavelength continuous-wave pump laser. The Kerr coefficient (n2) of aluminum nitride is further extracted from our experimental results.
The magneto-optical polarization rotation effect has prolific applications in various research areas spanning the scientific spectrum including space and interstellar research, nano-technology and material science, biomedical imaging, and sub-atomic particle research. In nonlinear magneto-optical rotation (NMOR), the intensity of a linearly-polarized probe field affects the rotation of its own polarization plane while propagating in a magnetized medium. However, typical NMOR signals of conventional single-beam $Lambda-$scheme atomic magnetometers are peculiarly small, requiring sophisticated magnetic shielding under complex operational conditions. Here, we show the presence of an energy-symmetry blockade that undermines the NMOR effect in conventional single-beam $Lambda-$scheme atomic magnetometers. We further demonstrate, both experimentally and theoretically, an inelastic wave-mixing technique that breaks this NMOR blockade, resulting in more than five orders of magnitude ($>$300,000-fold) NMOR optical signal power spectral density enhancement never before seen with conventional single-beam $Lambda-$scheme atomic magnetometers. This new technique, demonstrated with substantially reduced light intensities, may lead to many applications, especially in the field of bio-magnetism and high-resolution low-field magnetic imaging.
Microring optical modulators are being explored extensively for energy-efficient photonic communication networks in future high-performance computing systems and microprocessors, because they can significantly reduce the power consumption of optical transmitters via the resonant circulation of light. However, resonant modulators have traditionally suffered from a trade-off between their power consumption and maximum operation bit rate, which were thought to depend oppositely upon the cavity linewidth. Here, we break this linewidth limitation using a silicon microring. By controlling the rate at which light enters and exits the microring, we demonstrate modulation free of the parasitic cavity linewidth limitations at up to 40 GHz, more than 6x the cavity linewidth. The device operated at 28 Gb/s using single-ended drive signals less than 1.5 V. The results show that high-Q resonant modulators can be designed to be simultaneously low-power and high-speed, features which are mutually incompatible in typical resonant modulators studied to date.
We experimentally and theoretically investigate mechanical nanooscillators coupled to the light in an optical ring resonator made of dielectric mirrors. We identify an optomechanical damping mechanism that is fundamentally different to the well known cooling in standing wave cavities. While, in a standing wave cavity the mechanical oscillation shifts the resonance frequency of the cavity in a ring resonator the frequency does not change. Instead the position of the nodes is shifted with the mechanical excursion. We derive the damping rates and test the results experimentally with a silicon-nitride nanomembrane. It turns out that scattering from small imperfections of the dielectric mirror coatings has to be taken into account to explain the value of the measured damping rate. We extend our theoretical model and regard a second reflector in the cavity that captures the effects of mirror back scattering. This model can be used to also describe the situation of two membranes that both interact with the cavity fields. This may be interesting for future work on synchronization of distant oscillators that are coupled by intracavity light fields.